The 'Gastronaut Roadshow' Visits Highfields!

Yesterday we enjoyed a visit from celebrity chef, Stefan Gates, who performed his 'Gastronaut Roadshow' for Highfields students. This visit was a prize won by our Health and Social Care students who participated in Wolverhampton City Council's 'Learning for Success 2013'.

Stefan's show was watched by 250 Year 7 and Key Stage 4 Food Technology and Catering students. The show was a spectacular and entertaining combination of food experiments, showing how food can explode, fuel a rocket and change the colour (acidity/alkalinity) of water. Students enjoyed seeing how freezing food affects its smell and how some foods affect our bodily functions. Stefan provided students with much food for thought; he demonstrated, for example, how eating insects could help solve the problem of feeding the growing world population.

It was a fast and lively show, lots to laugh about with a good measure of food science and nutrition thrown in!

A mind-blowing mix of science and extraordinary cooking, with video clips and lots of audience participation. Stefan performs custard-powder flamethrowing, fries an egg on a piece of paper, conducts a vegetable orchestra and if you’re lucky you’ll get to try his insects, jellyfish salad and bum sandwiches.

— www.thegastronaut.com

Highfields staff and students joined in the experiments. Jack Walker, Year 11 froze cheese with a fire extinguisher. Ethan Salter, Year 7 encountered exploding food and Sophie Bates along with Ms Thomson tasted some unusual foods!

Ethan Salter - Exploding Food

Jack Walker - Freezing Cheese

Jack Walker - Freezing Cheese

Changing the Colour of Water

Ms Thomson and Sophie Bates - Tasting Unusual Foods

Here is a video from Stefan's YouTube channel. This wasn't part of the show, but hopefully it will give you a 'taste' of what went on!